Ruling Bars Suspect's Grand Jury Testimony

In what is said to be an unprecedented ruling, a state judge decided Tuesday that a prosecutor cannot use a suspect's testimony from a secret state investigative grand jury at a criminal trial.

Hartford Superior Court Judge Joseph Q. Koletsky suggested at the end of his 14-page ruling that the General Assembly ``may wish to address'' the state's need to use evidence collected by a grand jury investigating crimes. His ruling, said the judge, was the first one of its kind.

Assistant State's Attorney Dennis O'Connor argued that reasonable public policy requires the use of grand jury testimony to make it an effective crime-fighting tool.

Koletsky said that the exceptions allowing the use of grand jury testimony come when there is a question whether a witness committed perjury before the grand jury; or when a witness's testimony at a trial is inconsistent with the person's grand jury testimony.

In this case, said Koletsky, the prosecutor was attempting to use the testimony of the suspect for his case at trial, even though the suspect was promised that his testimony would be secret when he was a witness before the grand jury. If the testimony were used by the prosecutor, said the judge, the suspect might even be precluded from taking the stand to deny the accuracy of the grand jury transcript because of the secrecy of the grand jury process.

Connecticut is one of few states that make the grand jury process so secret; some judges have even sealed arrest warrant statements to protect grand jury testimony involving a suspect's perjured testimony.

State law does allow a grand jury order to make certain disclosures if they are ``deemed to be in the public interest.''

In this case, Hartford Superior Court Judge Arthur L. Spada was a one-man grand jury who uncovered corruption inside the ranks of the Hartford Police Department.

Koletsky's ruling came in the case of Matthew Rivera, a Hartford police officer charged with first-degree larceny; he is accused of cheating the public by failing to work for his salary and for overtime bonuses as well.

Rivera, who has been suspended without pay, was arrested Oct. 25, 1994, as part of an investigative grand jury's 18-month inquiry.

As a community service officer assigned to Hartford's South End, Rivera is accused of making nightly stops at the Charter Oak Package Store, arriving in his cruiser at 5 p.m. and staying until 9.

In reaching his conclusions as a grand juror, Spada wrote them down in a separate report released to the public.

Spada wrote that while in the store, Rivera played poker with a convicted felon, would not respond to police calls, never had to account for his time there and never alerted his supervisors. When he left, Rivera would return to his beat and assign himself additional overtime, Spada's report said.

Rivera's attorney, Michael Georgetti of Hartford, countered that Rivera was doing his job, getting to know the merchants and the community he served. Police had no written policies governing how community service officers such as Rivera were to spend their time, and officers were left unsupervised, the lawyer argued.

``The sole charge was that he spent essentially too much time in one business,'' Georgetti said earlier. ``That's the way business was done. If it's going to become a crime, the police department should issue policies and procedures. Instead, they're left to their own best judgment . . . There was no intent on Matt Rivera's part to break the law. With hindsight, yes, he could have done some things differently.''